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May 18, 2010

Marijuana is in Politics and on Television. Good or Bad?

Prohibition of marijuana has made it more popular than ever, and it's the one issue everyone has an opinion on. These days, politicians admit to smoking pot openly.

The only place more strictly censored than the world of politics is the arena of broadcast television, and hit shows like Fringe, The Office, and Parks and Recreation have all made blantant pot references. Family Guy even had a whole "420" episode. Everywhere you look people are looking at marijuana and saying, "It's just not that big a deal". Is that the right attitude or is pot just getting too popular?

If everywhere we look we see that pot is okay, will it make it more likely for people to want to get high? This is what some of the opponents of legalization were and are afraid of. Premium Cable channels (like HBO and Showtime) include stoner characters, or some reference to pot in a large number of their shows. The Showtime Show Weeds is all pot all the time.

When Barack Obama announced that he had smoked weed, he was able to put it bluntly. Regularly when a politician admits to have smoked pot, they do it in the least direct way possible, and even so more than ever are coming out of the pot closet. We have to decide if the new role of pot is one we agree with.

"I experimented with marijuana a time or two, and I didn't like it. I didn't inhale and never tried it again."–Bill Clinton

"When I was a kid, I inhaled. That was the point" - Barack Obama

John Kerry and George W Bush have also both awkwardly admitted to smoking pot.

So where are we headed as a society. Are we all going to be obsessed with pot. Is marijuana going to be in all of our media, malls and schools. Probably not. The current hysteria surrounding the world of stoners is an effect of prohibition. Pot is the best kind of taboo, the cool, fun and harmless kind. That's the kind that spreads under pressure.

After pot is legalized we will begin assimilating it into our culture. In fact from what we know about the rates of pot smoking from countries where marijuana is legal, it's likely that after the end of prohibition fewer people will be marijuana users. Amsterdam and Portugal both have lower rates of marijuana use than America. So does Canada and other countries with friendly pot laws.

The people who still smoke pot will be the people who do so because they enjoy it. It will have lost the cool "taboo" edge. It will still be in TV and we'll still have politicians coming out and talking about their pot use, but that's natural and good. Our society has marijuana deep in it's culture and we need to be able to get a straight look at it if we want to use it responsibility.

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